One Moment at a Time
by sableambiguity
Summary: A lifetime is made of moments. Love stories are no different. -a Zutara100 collection-
1. Change

**A/N ; **Trying my hand at the Zutara100 "challenge" on LJ. Drabbles aren't connected, won't be linear, and will have various ratings.

Oh, and AtLA isn't mine.

* * *

**Prompt ;** #17 – Lust

**Title ;** Change  
**Rating ;** T  
**Word Count ;** 509  
**Summary ;** Lots of room to fill in the blanks, but it's little more than steam.

* * *

He shouldn't be here.

It is late—far past late, it is early. Early enough that the sun is a glimmer on the horizon, waves cresting golden at what seems the edge of the world. Early enough that the rest of the island sleeps; when day breaks, it will be back to work as usual, to the far corners of the four nations.

They will be gone, and with them the reminder of friendship, of acceptance, of trust.

Four years of kingship have left him as sharp as his crown. He forgets to smile, to laugh, and the feeling of anything more than disdain or duty beneath a polished surface—until he comes here.

Once a year, they promised in the city of walls of secrets. Once a year, an anniversary of their time on Ember Island before the comet came and everything _really_ changed. They could even take in a play, the little earthbender had said, and everyone had laughed.

She is not so little now, just as the Avatar is not so fickle. The Water Tribe boy is not so loud or lanky, and the girl—

Well, she is no longer a _girl_, for starters.

They are not the only ones who have changed. He is not so naïve he doesn't see the way she looks at him across the fire, feel something stir at her smile, at the way she lingers just a bit longer each year. This is the first time she stays, long after the flames have died, when the others have slipped away, one by one, two by two—even that changed with time.

He shouldn't be here.

And then she begins to dance.

He thinks to himself – not for the first time – that she lacks the grace of his people. She is neither tall nor elegant like the ladies in his court, she has neither the sophistication nor the practiced manners of a woman bred for coquettish intrigue.

But there is _something_ as he watches her. Bending – dancing – and her element is no more fluid than she is, dark and lithe in the silver haze of an ever-approaching dawn.

He watches, and he wants.

The curve of her hip taunts him. As the fabric of her dress slips away he curses it for deceiving him so long—that it would hide how perfectly his hand could fit there if she'd only let him touch her, _hold_ her.

Want becomes need and he watches still.

Her hair is loose and trails past her waist, as wild and free as he ever saw it. It begs to be tangled in his hands, just as her lips beg to be kissed, and slender legs beg to be twined with his. He holds his breath lest the spell be broken; how long has this been building between them?

Their gazes meet and time stops. There's a moment, a choice—

When their mouths crash together he knows this must be what lust is made of—dawning light, saltspray, and the color of the ocean during a storm.


	2. Something More

**Prompt ;** #84 – Flower

**Title ;** Something More  
**Rating ;** K  
**Word Count ;** 405  
**Summary ;** Pure fluff.

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They were walking by the turtleduck pond when she spotted it. While she delighted over finding a perfect fire lily in bloom – it had been years since she'd seen one, she cooed – he was wondering how someone managed to smuggle it into the Fire Lord's private garden. All signs pointed to one culprit; an uncle trying to drop his nephew very blatant hints that _neither_ of them was getting any younger.

She could sense his irritation, and after bickering for awhile about how he was _supposed to be relaxing_ and she _didn't understand_, he cut her off with a terse, "It's just a flower."

"No," she said, refusing – like always – to let it go. "It's something more."

# # #

They were in the marketplace for what she deemed a much-needed trip around the city when her hand on his elbow stopped him and pointed to a scene just a few yards away.

For all intents and purposes they were simply watching a young man give a young woman a flower, and he told her so.

"That's a panda lily," and he could hear the roll of her eyes in the exasperation of her tone.

When he still failed to see the importance, she shot him one of her infamous _looks_ and snapped, "It means something more."

# # #

Toph had hit the nail on the head once – years ago – when she pointed out that the two people who never had fun knew how to when they were together.

What no one was quite as eager to point out was that they also fought, and fought, and fought. Heated arguments, shouting matches, and he couldn't count how many water whips he'd had to dodge along the way, or how many times he'd almost burned the curtains.

He couldn't remember what it was about this time, and neither could she—though she would never admit that to him. He lasted ten days – ten days of battling with himself not to join her as she sat in the garden, bent in the rain, and smiled to everyone but him – before he found her in the library and extended the peace offering he'd brought.

Its stem was bent, a leaf was wilting, but by the look on her face, it was still perfect.

"All you're giving me is a flower?" yet her voice told him he'd already been forgiven.

And when she kissed him, he finally knew what she meant by something more.


	3. Never Enough

**Prompt ;** #49 - Nurture

**Title ;** Never Enough  
**Rating ;** K+  
**Word Count ;** 646  
**Summary ;** Leiko angst (Leiko = Zuko and his daughter with Katara, Lei), plus Ursa for good measure. There's Zutara in there, I promise.

* * *

He had never wanted children. Certainly not when he was a young boy, groomed to be king and told that the fate of his country rested on his ability to produce an heir. Even less when he was a disowned prince sailing the seas in search of a figment of the imagination, and less still when he was a newly-crowned teenage Fire Lord—the first in centuries.

And least of all at twenty-three, with the Senate and Clergy breathing down his neck, with his mother taking inventory of how life went on without her, with his sister on the loose and the world coming down around him.

( But she'd been so pretty that night by the lake, and he'd been so lonely—too lonely to admit it to himself until he had her soft and warm beneath him and her gentle moans in his ear. )

Even now, standing at the edge of the crib looking down at the subtle rise and fall of that fragile chest, he didn't want children. Didn't want the responsibility, didn't want the _change_. Change had rarely been good for him.

He didn't want that little girl to ever grow up and call him father—the name that still burned like poison in his memories. He didn't want her to grow up and ask why her grandfather's portrait had been taken down, or why her grandmother looked _sad_ sometimes, or why he never smiled.

He didn't want to have to tell her that their great and beautiful nation was built on the graves of the innocent, or that peace was bought with blood, or that once upon a time he believed what they still said about her mother—that she was a peasant, inferior.

( And he didn't want to explain why every time her great-grandmother looked at him he felt the need to say he was sorry, _so sorry_, and it wasn't just for the war his people had brought to their icy home. )

Most of all, he didn't want anyone to know what he didn't want. That was why he only visited under the cover of darkness, when the whole world seemed to be asleep—save him.

"So this is where you've been," startled him as a result. His mother, her hair down, a simple robe tied snug around her, a smile on her face.

It had never been like this before. Her elegance, he remembered that well over the years, but not her ease. It was the ease that made her seem real.

( No one would ever know how often he wanted to hug her in those first days, to hug her so tightly she couldn't be taken away from him again. )

"Hiding in the dark." There was no point in denying it, his jaw barely flexing in acknowledgment of his guilt. "What are you afraid of?"

When he finally spoke, it was little more than a raspy, "Disappointing her—them."

( He barely remembers slender fingers in his hair, the fuzzy warmth spread by a few feather-light kisses along his jaw, and the _power_ of three little words whispered just the night before. )

As if on cue, his worst fear was realized; with a sigh and a stir, bright blue eyes peeked open and trapped him in their sight. He was frozen in fear, waiting for the inevitable—a keening wail or cry that would alert the whole wing to his presence.

Instead, he got a smile – a gummy _grin_ – before his mother stepped forward to gather that little blanketed bundle and deposit it in his arms. "You won't," was all she said, her hand on his shoulder almost more reassuring than anything he'd ever felt in his life.

Almost—because the way his daughter stared up at him with that smile on her face was the most reassuring thing of all.


End file.
